Fun fact of the Day: Colour me blue!

Part 1: Peacocks, Colonisation and the Virgin Mary

It’s not surprising that you, or someone you know say that blue is their favourite colour. In India of course, men in blue are our pride. It’s so easy to take this ubiquitous colour for granted. And so today, let’s witness the wonder of Blue — you’re in for some surprises!

Ask someone, which is the rarest colour in nature? Or rather, ask Google. The unequivocal answer Google will give you is, BLUE!

In fact, the colour is so rare that many languages did not even have a separate word for it.

Even today Japanese, Thai, Korean and Vietnamese do not have separate words for green and blue. Linguistic research suggests a weird thing — first colours to be named in any language are black and white, followed by red (a very common pigment in nature) and blue appears last. Probably because it was not important to mention blue since it did not exist! Most of the flowers don’t actually contain the blue pigment but obtain the blue look by varying pH levels and modifying the reflected light.

What about blue butterflies? Blue birds? Peacocks are surely blue? Uhmmm… No. Peacocks are actually brown. All these creatures just “look” blue because of a phenomenon called structural coloration. The microscopic structures of the furs of these creatures reflect light in a certain manner that make them look blue. If you dip a peacock feather in water, you’ll see it doesn’t look so blue anymore! In fact, blue eyes are also a mere trick of light. Wait, what about the blue skies and ocean? Surprisingly, none of the ancient texts across the world mention water or the sky as blue.

Wait, then how did blue become so popular? Well, it starts with the Virgin Mary and ends with a certain hot dude James Dean.

…to be continued.